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[Atlantic News]

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Trial Account Changes in Publish 58
Tim “Draconi” Cotten
16 Feb 2009

Hail and well met, loyal citizens of Britannia!

Following the enormously positive and constructive feedback we’ve received, the Ultima Online team would like to announce our preliminary plans for changes to trial accounts in the next publish.

These changes will restrict a certain set of advanced features to paying subscribers, and in turn, loosen unnecessary “character age” requirements. Until now, systems and content in UO have not been designed in a way that discourages exploitative use of trial accounts, the abuse of which severely impacts the enjoyment of our players.

The fun of the trial experience will be preserved - trial players will be able to continue traveling our vast world, fight dangerous monsters, join guilds and parties, and even rest in a friend’s home. However, from now on, trial accounts will not be a vehicle of convenience for exploitative behavior.

What is a Trial Account?

A free trial account is a special offer to play UO for free, without activating a subscription, or purchasing a copy of the game.

Therefore, trial accounts should not be confused with the first month of free gameplay associated with buying a release of the game. This first month of prepaid subscription entitles you to all the benefits of a regular subscriber.
Trial Account Changes

Player Housing
Cannot place, own, trade, or receive a house
Only the “Friend” and “Guild” levels of access permissions will be available

Player Vendors
Cannot own or rent

Travel
Cannot enter Felucca dungeons, or the Felucca Lost Lands

Resources
Only receive basic resources (ex: iron instead of hued ore, regardless of skill)
No bonus resources (jewels, granite, sand, etc)


Bulk Order Deeds
Cannot receive, use, or turn-in

Quests
Cannot repeat normally repeatable quests

Factions
Cannot join Factions

Champ Spawns
Cannot participate in, or receive rewards from

Community Collections
Cannot donate or receive rewards

These items will no longer be usable by trial accounts:
Commodity deeds
Skill/stat advancement scrolls (Alacrity, Power, Transcendence, etc)
Holiday gifts, special rewards (ex: veteran rewards)
Bags of Sending
Bracelets of Binding
Pet Summoning Balls
Soulstones

Character Age Requirements

Character age requirements related to the above systems will be removed. For instance, the artificial character age requirement for house placement (15 days) is no longer necessary, and was only meant to be a temporary solution.

Test Centers

Because UO has such a vibrant community of testers, the above restrictions will not apply to the Test Centers. These servers will make all the benefits of regular subscription available even to free trial players, including housing.

Events

Events are an important part of the Live content cycle. We understand how frustrating it can be to brave harrowing crypts and solve intricate puzzles, only to watch a “young status” player walk by and collect the same reward with little to no risk. Changes will be made to the ongoing events to stop this sort of thing from happening.

Misc

We are currently discussing ways to reduce resource farming with trial accounts beyond the restrictions listed above. This may include diminishing the amount of iron ore mined or lumber harvested over time, to prevent flooding the market. This is tentative.

Additionally, we’re slating a fix for “ghost cams” (unattended monitoring of Champ Spawns) for Publish 58 as well.

Summary

We’d like to take a moment and thank all the players who participated in our discussion on the Stratics’ forum, and everyone who sent in feedback.

We believe this is a strong step forward for Ultima Online, and hope you look forward to the rest of Publish 58!

Yours,

Tim “Draconi” Cotten